Loose ends r-1

by Greg Cox

  They drove in heavy silence for maybe fifteen, twenty minutes or so, before Michael saw the Chevy's right turn signal flash on. A stretch of cheap motels lined both sides of the highway, and Michael watched intently as Morton turned his car into the parking lot of a Motel 6. He exchanged a wordless look with Max, acknowledging that they'd both noted the detour the Chevy had just taken, Guess we're not driving to Texas after all, Michael concluded somberly. Which makes sense, I suppose, if Morton really is planning to meet the lieutenant at Slaughter Canyon tonight He wouldn't want to get too jar from the Park for the time being To avoid tipping off Morton, Michael drove past the Motel 6. Max squirmed impatiently as he did so, but recognized the necessity of maintaining their cover. He waited stiffly, tapping his foot against the floor of the Jeep, as the army-surplus vehicle circled back, eventually coming to rest in front of the Days Inn directly across the street from Motel 6. The minute Michael hit the brakes, Max hopped out of the Jeep and ran to the edge of the road, peering across the highway at the motel parking lot where they had last seen Morton's convertible. Michael didn't know whether to be relieved or disappointed that the blue Chevy was still parked prominently in front of Motel 6.

  "Let's go," Max said as soon as Michael joined him at the roadside. Apparently, locating Morton's temporary lodgings was not good enough for Max; he was determined to take this foolhardy expedition another step further.

  "Wait," Michael cautioned him. "We ought to do something else first." Max grudgingly let Michael drag him back into the parking lot, where they hid from sight between two oversize sports utility vehicles. Michael looked up and down the narrow space between the two humongous gas guzzlers, making sure no one was watching them. "Isabel had the right idea," he explained, "just so Morton doesn't recognize us from the elevator."Concentrating, the way Nasedo had taught him, Michael ran his hand through his hair. A mop of disorderly brown hair lightened dramatically, all the way to bleached white. "Let's find out if blonds really do have more fun," he cracked. With a few more passes of his hand, he changed the cut and color of his clothing, replacing his black T-shirt and jeans with a bright blue football jersey and khaki slacks. A pair of dark sunglasses added a final layer of anonymity. "Your turn," he told Max when he was finished.

  Nodding, Max disguised himself as well. Perhaps in solidarity with Liz, he gave himself sandy red hair, then changed his flannel shirt and jeans into a white tank top and a pair of cutoffs. "Good job," Michael commented, barely recognizing Max with his new look. "The sweat stains are a nice touch."Those are authentic," Max said dryly, glancing up at the sun. He put on his own shades and stepped out from between the parked SUVs, into the full heat of afternoon. "C'mon, we haven't got all day."Actually, we have until midnight, Michael recalled, but didn't bother to correct Max. He wanted to get this over with, too, and return to Maria and the others. Wonder how they're doing back at the caverns? He hoped Maria was doing a better job of calming down Liz than he was doing with Max. Which one of us got the tougher assignment, I wonder.

  Crossing the busy highway was not easy. They had to hike about a half mile up the road, breathing in lungfuls of gritty dust and exhaust, before finding a lighted crosswalk, Heat waves rippled over the hot asphalt, giving their time-consuming trek a feverish, hallucinatory quality. More than once, Max had been tempted to make a dash for it, but Michael successfully convinced him that turning themselves both into road pizza was not going to do Liz any good-or put Joe Morton safely behind bars.

  Once across the highway, they had to backtrack the same half mile to reach Motel 6 at last. The whole time, Max had worried that Morton would pull up stakes and move on before they got back to the blue Chevy, which they ultimately found parked right outside room #19, facing the highway. Treading softly upon the cement walkway running past the wing of cheap motel rooms, Max placed his ear up against the door of #19. A few feet away, standing guard in case anyone came along, Michael thought he could hear voices coming from the other side of the door, "Is it him?" he whispered to Max.

  Max held up a finger to silence Michael and listened some more at the door, his face screwed up in concentration. "1 think so," he said finally, stepping back from the door. "But there's somebody else in there with him. Another man."Michael scowled, not liking what he was hearing. Another stranger, besides Morton and the lieutenant? This whole thing was getting too damn complicated. How many people were in this stupid conspiracy anyway, assuming that there was, in fact, some kind of criminal conspiracy going on? "What now, fearless leader?" he asked Max sarcastically. He certainly hoped Max wasn't seriously thinking about barging into Morton's room right this very minute. They had their special powers to fight with, of course, but Morton and his unknown associate almost certainly had guns, and the willingness to use them. C'mon, Max, he urged silently. His mouth was dry and he would have killed, figuratively speaking, for another spicy sip of Tabasco sauce. Let's not get crazy here.

  Fortunately, Max wasn't that far gone yet, no matter how out of character he had been acting. "I have a plan," he announced after a moment's thought. Indicating that Michael should follow him, he walked to the far end of the outdoor walkway, then stationed himself in front of the ice machine roughly ten yards away from Morton's door. "This should be far enough," he stated cryptically. "Get ready."For what?" Michael asked, having no idea what Max had in mind. "What's the big plan?"Watch," Max instructed. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, marshalling his preternatural mental energies. Then he opened his eyes and extended his arm, pointing his index finger at the dusty blue hood of Morton's convertible, several yards away.

  Abruptly, the Chevy came alive, as though struck by lightning. Its horn honked and its car alarm blared. The windshield wipers whipped back and forth across the curved glass, while the sprinklers squirted cleaning solution over and over. Even the car's engine surged to life, roaring beneath the hood of the Chevy like a prehistoric monster. "Hey, pretty cool, man!" Michael enthused, impressed despite himself. I've got to remember that trick, he thought.

  No surprise, the earsplitting automotive commotion drew Joe Morton from his room in a hurry. The door slammed open and he came charging out, a Smith amp; Wesson semi-automatic pistol clutched in his hand. Gulping, Michael wondered if Max had figured on the gun when devising this ingenious plan. Morton ran to his car and hastily shut off the alarm, wipers, sprinklers, etc., all the while looking for the parties responsible for the disturbance. His bloodthirsty eyes fixed on Max and Michael, over by the ice machine, and Michael could practically see him calculating the distance between the Chevy and the two teenagers. "Hey, you kids!" he hollered, sounding perplexed as well as irate. "Did you see anybody messing with my car?"No, sir," Michael shouted back quickly, not trusting Max to respond without giving away his true feelings. Fortunately, he'd had a lot of practice at playing dumb. "We just got here."Morton must have ruled them out as suspects, since, without even thanking Michael for his eyewitness report, he paid no more attention to the pair of disguised teens. "What the hell-?" he muttered irascibly, giving his front tires a savage kick just for the hell of it. He removed his orange cap, revealing a sizable bald spot atop his cranium, and scratched his head in confusion. "I don't get it. How the devil-?"What is it?" a new voice asked nervously from the threshold of Morton's motel room. "What's the matter?"A second individual emerged from #19: a nerdy-looking Asian guy, at least a foot shorter than Morton and a lot less menacing in appearance, wearing a pair of black-rimmed glasses and a Bujfy the Vampire Slayer T-shirt. He furtively looked up and down the row of motel rooms, as if fearful of being seen in Morton's company. The new guy had "guilty" written all over his skinny fan-boy face, prompting Michael to wonder again what sort of crooked deal was in the works. A thug, a lieutenant, and a geek, he thought, mentally running down their ever-growing list of suspects. Talk about your strange bedfellows.

  Max reacted even more strongly to their first glimpse of the newcomer. "What?" he murmured under his breath, too low for Morton or his roommate
to hear. "I know that guy. I've seen him before."Huh? Michael thought. He was positive that the little Asian dude had not been the second man at the Crash-down on the day Liz was shot, so where else could Max know him from? The UFO Museum in Roswell, maybe? That was the only thing Michael could think of right away. "What do you mean, man?" he whispered fervently. "How do you know him?"It took Max a couple seconds to place the guy. "Las Cruces University," he said eventually. Surprise and puzzlement temporarily drove the simmering animosity from his face. "I saw him at the university that one time, when I snuck into the particle physics lab to sabotage that experiment. He was one of the lab technicians performing those tests on Agent Pierces bones!"What?" Michael asked, stunned by this latest revelation. He could hardly forget the incident in question; if not for Max, he recalled pointedly, I'd probably be serving time for Pierce's murder right now. He watched numbly as the alleged science guy frantically convinced Morton to put his handgun away and step back inside the motel room. The painted turquoise door slammed shut, leaving Max and Michael alone outside the motel, with far too many questions to keep them company. "Are you sure?" Michael asked in disbelief. This can't be right. It doesn't make any sense! "Positive," Max insisted. His intense gaze remained fixed on the door to #19. Michael didn't hear a trace of doubt in his voice. "He was there, with Congresswoman Whitaker and the others."That Whitaker had ultimately turned out to be a Skin did not make Michael any happier. Okay, he thought, now I'm really feeling paranoid. It was one thing when he thought Morton was just another lowlife hood, and the shooting in Crashdown nothing more than a routine drug deal gone wrong, but now the surly gunman appeared mixed-up with something far more complicated and unnerving, something that conceivably tied in with the life-or-death dangers and deceptions that had become part of their daily existences, ever since Max first stopped Liz Parker from bleeding to death on the diner floor. What was Joe Morton doing in Roswell that day? he fretted anxiously. And what is he plotting now? "All right, you win," he told Max sourly. "We need to find out more about this guy. A lot more."

  7.

  Post-traumatic stress disorder," Alex diagnosed. "That's what you're experiencing, Liz. I'm sure of it."And here I thought I was just going crazy, Liz thought ruefully, sitting in a booth next to Maria, across from Alex and Isabel. The oppressive heat had finally driven them indoors, not long after Max's sister had rejoined them on the surface, to the family-style restaurant attached to the Visitors Center. Liz picked unenthusiastically at a cooling plate of cheese-coated nachos while ignoring the milkshake and tamales her friends had treated her to. At the next booth over, a temperamental infant threw a tantrum, banging a metal spoon against the tray of its highchair while shrieking its lungs out simultaneously. Liz flinched involuntarily every time the spoon noisily struck the tray. The baby's high-pitched screams scraped away at her already raw and hypersensitive nerves. "Post-traumatic?" she repeated, not entirely sure what Alex was getting at.

  "Exactly," he said with utter confidence. "I should have realized it earlier." He dipped a nacho into a gooey pool of melted cheese. "I wrote a term paper on the subject for psychology last semester, and you're practically a textbook case, Liz. Well, except for the glowing handprint, that is."Hard to overlook that, Liz thought. Even though the luminous sigil was once again concealed beneath her T-shirt, she was half-convinced she could feel the silver handprint shimmering upon her belly. Her skin tingled where the handprint marked her, exactly where Max had healed her two years ago. He'd left an identical brand upon her on that unforgettable occasion, but the splayed silver fingers had eventually faded after a day or two. Why had the handprint returned after all this time? Max had not needed to heal her down in the murky caverns. He hadn't even touched her stomach.

  "Explain," Maria prompted Alex. Tiny vials of therapeutic scents were arrayed like toy soldiers next to her plate. Beneath the molded Formica tabletop, she placed a sympathetic hand on Liz's knee. "Isn't post-traumatic whatcha-macallit something Vietnam vets suffer from?"Alex nodded in agreement. "Soldiers, disaster victims, and anyone who goes through some kind of severe trauma and doesn't get the right kind of psychological counseling afterward. Liz's symptoms fit the profile perfectly: flashbacks, nervousness, heightened sensitivity to sudden noises and surprises, inability to concentrate or make decisions." From the look on his face, he must have suddenly realized what a discouraging litany he had just recited, and he hastened to add, "It's nothing personal, Liz. Nothing you need to be ashamed of. It's a perfectly normal psychological response to getting shot."But that was almost two years ago," Maria objected.

  Carefully selecting one of her vials, she inhaled deeply of its supposedly calming aroma. "Why would she be having this reaction now?"Alex stood by his original diagnosis. "Like I said, it's textbook. Sometimes the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder can pop up years after the traumatic incident. My guess is that seeing Morton again stirred up Liz's repressed memories of the shooting itself." He scratched his bushy black hair, and Liz remembered that his vocational testing exams, administered by the late Agent Topol-sky, had actually deemed best-suited to a career in psychiatry. "Actually when you think about it, Liz was a prime candidate for P.T.S.D. because she never really had a chance to emotionally deal with, or seek counseling for, the experience of being shot, since she had to pretend, for Max's sake, that it never happened." He gave Liz a playful smile. "Heck, kiddo, I'm amazed you haven't cracked up on us before now."Well, I've been kind of busy, you know." Liz had to admit there might be something to what Alex was saying; she sure felt like all those old memories from the shooting had snuck up and walloped her from behind. "Saving the world and all."No one's saying you haven't been through a lot," Isabel assured her. The aloof young alien princess had already filled them in on what she'd managed to glean from her conversation with Lieutenant Ramirez, even if, for the sake of Alex's feelings, she'd been a bit vague about the nature of that discussion. "We all have."Okay, okay," Maria said, still not entirely satisfied with Alex's explanation, "I'll give you that Liz almost certainly has issues regarding her shooting, but what about that freaky silver handprint?" She squeezed Liz's knee to express her concern for Liz's emotional and physical well-being. "How do you explain that, Dr. Freud?"Alex grimaced and munched on a nacho to buy an extra moment or two. "Well, yeah, that's the tricky part," he admitted eventually. The three women stared at him expectantly, waiting for a more informative response. He sighed and threw up his hands. "Fine. Here's a crazy idea, and I realize I'm going out on a limb here: What if the handprint is simply a psychosomatic manifestation of her post- traumatic stress disorder?"Huh?" Maria laughed. "You're joking? That's the best you can do?"Sitting next to Alex, Isabel looked skeptical as well, although she refrained from contradicting her constant admirer directly. Liz appreciated her restraint. After all, Alex was just trying to help.

  "No, no, think about it!" he insisted, caught up in his theories. "Isabel, didn't Nasedo tell Michael that all your alien powers are actually human powers, that you're really just tapping into parts of the human brain that the rest of us haven't figured out how to use yet?"Isabel nodded soberly. "That's right," she said, regarding him with uncertain eyes. "So?"Alex's face lit up as his latest theory came together in his mind. "Don't you see? There's no reason why Liz's unconscious mind couldn't mimic what Max did to her way back when, especially if her cells retained some sort of genetic memory of the original handprint." He gulped down a mouthful of Mountain Dew, fueling his cascading imagination with yet more caffeine. "Or maybe all of Liz's mind- melds with Max have stimulated Liz's own brain enough to fake the shiny handprint on her own."Like with stigmata?" Liz suggested, the budding scientist in her intrigued despite the topic's unsettling personal implications. "All those people who spontaneously develop wounds and marks on their bodies?"The same sort of thing, I'll bet," Alex theorized. "The unconscious mind is capable of all kinds of weird stuff, and Lord knows you've given it plenty of bizarre material to work with lately." He chewed thoughtfully on a
soggy nacho. "Yeah, the more I think about it, the more plausible this sounds. I'm pretty sure, Liz, that it's your own brain creating that handprint." He turned to Isabel for confirmation of his genius. "Not a bad job of figuring things out, eh?"Much to his obvious disappointment, however, Isabel still looked dubious. "That could work, I suppose," she said in a less than ringing validation of Alex's hypothesis.

  "Says the woman who can listen to CDs without a CD player," Alex pointed out indignantly, "or go traipsing through other people's dreams. After all the wacko garbage we've been through, from skin-shedding alien bodysnatch-ers to time travel, is one little stress-induced handprint too much to accept?"Even through her own agitated emotions, Liz thought she heard an extra touch of irritation in Alex's voice, more than Isabel's admittedly lukewarm endorsement of his theory really warranted. He's probably a little ticked-off and jealous, she speculated, because he knows, just like we all do, exactly how Isabel wormed all that information out of the lieutenant. You didn't have to be Mata Hari to imagine how that scene went down; Isabel could vamp members of the opposite sex like nobody's business.